Dazzle

@Alain Vigneault I really don't believe Schneider going on to win silverware on another team would have sat well with other Canuck fans. I know I would have been very unhappy/angry with that, considering I was AGAINST this trade from the beginning. And to be honest, I genuinely don't believe you when you said you'd be okay with the trade, considering Horvat was not really thought to be an "exciting" prospect (skating was considered his weakness), and this would end up being the last time we'd see Gillis in a GM position. I do think now that the trade worked well for the Canucks (fortunately) for the sole reason that Horvat has become the beast he is now. Horvat DID address the skating issue right away, as did Boeser. We were lucky to have two hard working prospects, but they worked hard to elevate their games (not lucky).

If Schneider had succeeded, it would have been another case of Cam Neely 2.0, which was brought up quite recently although briefly with regards to Virtanen. Canucks fans tend to remember the bad stuff more so than the good. We even feel like the team is cursed (draft picks, reffing, salary cap penalties etc.).

Based on what you said (cap implications, lack of exciting prospects etc), I believe you have unintentionally agreed that the trade was a bad one. The Canucks couldn't even take a throw-in? One more prospect on the farm could have helped. But it seems Gillis didn't go that route. I know you said you hated the trade, but the return is weak from the Canucks POV. All that development time and certainty in Schneider, and all you get is a draft pick of an unknown value because he hasn't proven anything at the NHL level yet, plus developmental time for that player. There WAS a risk in this trade that could've set this team back even further.

Contrary to what you think, it DOES exonerate Benning. If Gillis were to be given some leniency for losing draft picks, most notably the Ballard trade (Grabner, a former first round pick; a 1st round pick (25th overall, basically a 2nd rounder); Bernier (a 2nd and 3rd rounder used to pay for him), Benning should have been entitled to the same courtesy.  Both GMs were under the same ownership, and in both circumstances, winning was a priority. This ultimately dictated what GMs could do. After all, there were rumours that Aquilini did not like the rebuild idea. Could we really blame him?

Fans don't show up at the hint of mediocrity (and they didn't). This is an investment, a business. A rebuild doesn't sell you tickets, no matter what the fans think about it. So, we have an owner who didn't want to go through the process of rebuilding, and it actually cost the team a lot of time and draft picks to get to this point. However, unlike Gillis, Benning actually improved the development of players, many of whom we see now on the team.

You can't blame Gillis entirely either. He advocated radical changes like sleep doctors, and lobbied the league to improve travel schedules. He also got Aquilini to get new locker room facilities to re-inspire the players.  Having Ryan Walter (lol) to motivate the players. Gillis tried. And Aquilini was willing to spend every single year. You have to recognize that everyone is not faultless, but certainly not everyone is as incompetent as fans like to describe them as.

I think I have come to appreciate more what GIllis did (and didn't do) because I recognize that ownership/playoffs handcuffed him into selling the future for success. But this narrative also highlights Benning's contributions. As with any GM, Gillis and Benning had to answer to ownership. Therefore, fans calling for a GM or a coach to be fired don't seem to realize that they are just convenient figureheads that answer to ownership. Sometimes owners let people do their jobs if they have confidence in them. I believe Aquilini has confidence in Benning right now.

Being completely anti-Gillis or being anti-Benning doesn't let you fully understand the situation. And we see the bias on the forums every day. You'd think that nothing good is happening right now. Did you know that Buffalo (same year as us as an expansion team, 1970) has missed the playoffs 9 consecutive times?  Our fans are incoherent, ungrateful, and spoiled.

No, I honestly wouldn't have been upset.  Like I said, I knew we were giving up a top goaltender who was capable of achieving those things.  Up until 2018, Schneider was fairly good for New Jersey anyway.  It's a shame that injuries did him in.

I already said that Gillis mismanaged the Schneider/Luongo trades way back before.  I wasn't highlighting his goalie trades as good trades; I was highlighting the fact that trading Schneider to New Jersey was smarter than trading him to Edmonton, even if he walked away from "less" of a return.

If you want to believe that trading picks for rentals (during a period of time when your team is a clear-cut favourite for winning the Stanley Cup) is the same thing as trading picks as throw-ins/sweeteners to upgrade prospects, then by all means.  The truth is that trading a 2nd or 3rd for a rental, which is what Gillis did, is far better risk to take than trading a 3rd with a low-grade prospect attached for Andrey Pedans, which is what Benning regularly did.  It's fine to try that gamble once but Benning made at least 2-3 of those types of deals all throughout his first two seasons.  For every serviceable Baertschi you might get, you get a sea of Veys/Larsens/Etems/Pedans.  It was super wasteful and I don't imagine ownership was pressuring him to make those deals either.  Gillis tried that with Bernier, it didn't work out, and he never did that type of move again.  So, no, Benning doesn't get a free pass because he continued to repeat these deals when it was clear early on they weren't working.

Development has improved, sure, but again, it's easier to develop top 10 picks than it is picks in the 20-30 range, especially when your team is at the bottom of the basement.  When you're playing in a top team, the expectation is to develop while helping your team win.  That isn't necessarily the same case when your team is at the bottom and expected to suck.  Case and point, Zack Kassian (just 21 and 30 ish games of NHL experience) being expected to be our "Milan Lucic" upon being acquired, while somebody like Virtanen is still getting the "just wait until he matures" treatment from some fans, despite having 5 seasons of pro hockey under his belt.  Many still believe in Juolevi despite him entering his draft+5 with 1 NHL game played, having been taken as a top 5 pick.

Now that Judd is gone, it will be interesting to see what amounts of the 2020 picks and picks of subsequent drafts.  I won't sit here and argue that he did all the work, but I don't think its necessarily coincidental that from 2015 - 2020, we've seen some of the best prospects and development of prospects in the organization's history.  Nevertheless, Judd wasn't here in 2014 and yet that draft produced Virtanen, McCann, Demko, and Tryamkin, so maybe this bodes well for Benning.

@Alain Vigneault Gillis' trading for Bernier wasn't a rental. He traded the 2nd and 3rd round picks in July. This probably would have made sense if Bernier was the real deal. Later on, as I described in the other post, he was traded WITH Grabner AND a 1st for Ballard. In all of these transactions, no one was a rental. This in some way justifies Gillis' thought process at the time. There was some inherent value with Bernier and Ballard; that is until they proved to be players that didn't pan out.

Pedan was acquired using a 4th round pick, which is comparable to how Alberts was acquired by Gillis (4th and 5th round picks, if I recall, and Alberts was a rental, but ended up signing with us afterward.) Pretty insignificant player to the rebuild/retool in the grand scheme of things, but no one can legitimately say that he hurt the team. Pedan and Alberts probably likely outperformed any of the draft picks that the above teams probably used. It's probably a wash in the end, but I didn't actually look them up.

I think criticizing these trades with these medium to low grade picks is a bit nitpicky. Both GMs did this to shore up depth, which is exactly what these players were thought to be. Larsen also was a cheaply acquired pick, 4th round pick if I recall from Edmonton, but was extremely skilled. Etems was acquired in exchange of Jensen (late 1st round pick by Nonis that didn't pan out), and a 6th round). Etems actually had a decent season in Anaheim, but was clearly a reclamation project and nobody won that trade at all. Vey is really the only one that you could potentially criticize but he had very solid AHL numbers. It just didn't work out, but we will likely have no idea how much that family drama (dad accused of murder plot) affected his on-ice performance.

Dunno why Baertschi's name keeps coming up though. He is/was a good player, but a 2nd (Rasmus Anderson for CAL) was used to pay for it. We never had anyone like Baertschi up until this point. In fact, he was top-six for the initial years of Benning. That's exactly how thin we were on depth. The fact that we kept trying to get semi-developed players for low-ish draft picks speeds volumes about how Benning TRIED (keyword tried) to improve the depth on this team, which had next to nothing. All those players we talked about, we had none of those in the system. Furthermore, players like Petan did end up getting traded away to NYI for scrap pieces. Remember, Benning was under the gun to try to compete. How do you do that when you have a 3rd, 4th round picks which ultimately require time to develop? Benning tried to take the shortcut, and in many of these cases, it didn't really work out. It just comes to show you how tough it is to make it to the NHL. It's also very hard to construct an NHL team, which isn't at all like the NHL video games.

Juolevi is a good prospect, but his injuries have really hampered him. This pick looks really bad especially when people were clammering for Tkachuk/Nylander, and Sergachev (who really benefited being in the Tampa system, otherwise he would have been a poor selection for us). Juolevi could still be an important piece moving forward, but we will have no idea what would have happened if he wasn't so injured. Hopefully he doesn't get so unlucky from this point forward. I am still one of those hopeful about Juolevi.

Virtanen is a better version of Kassian, but it's unfortunate that both players have discipline/off-ice issues. Had he panned out like a young Lucic or something, he would have been a hometown hero in the same rank as Larkin for Detroit. After hearing the stuff today that Warhippy said about Virt, I am not happy with this player anymore.

Judd is a great scout, but Benning and Weisbrod (lol the Jankowski pick looks kinda bad though for what he promised) are experts at what they do. Having a third voice like Judd is not really that useful, particularly as Judd is discovering his thrill for having autonomy. Good for him. He deserved it.

The McCann pick/trade was a notable flub by Benning, and Gudbranson was not a great acquisition at all, which ended up being Pearson. We still don't have anyone that is like Pearson in our system, at least not nearly as developed like he is. Everything is still in progress with Benning. Demko was an amazing pick, and so was Hoglander. (Both 2nd round picks). There's others coming that also have potential to be great (Dipietro, Lind, etc)

From our discussion, we can review the Miller trade again. The 1st round pick (lottery protected) used to trade for Miller is comparable to the trade for Schneider and NJ. They're opposite trades actually, but I can explain.  NJ tried to acquire a known entity like Schneider. Canucks tried to acquired a known entity like Miller. If NJ's trade was thought to be one that made sense to the Canucks, then the trade for Miller should be seen in the same light. It should be reiterated that the 1st round pick was lottery protected, which TB was not able to get. Miller was on a good contract, and so was Schneider. You have to pay to get something good in return. Although TB had a cap crunch, they didn't have to sell too low for Miller because he was still someone who was producing on their team.

If you thought there wasn't a risk to trade Schneider, but thought Miller's trade was risky, there is something inconsistent in that analysis. Both trades were calculated risks. When you think about it, do you realize that Schneider's failure in NJ and poor team performance likely had an impact on Lou Lamouriello's reputation as a GM? Some decisions don't work out and the blame goes to the GM, whether that's fair or not. There's a 2015 article I saw just from a search that put NJ's failures on Lou.

https://montrealgazette.com/sports/hockey/nhl/pat-hickey-blame-gm-lamoriello-for-the-devils-problems

It doesn't talk about Schneider, but we both know he struggled mightily along with the team. Imagine if he had been another Brodeur...